San Diego has too many attractions to see in just one visit

Relaxing by the museums of Balboa Park.

Photograph by: Martha Lowrie
, For Postmedia News

Imagine two weeks in San Diego without visiting the zoo or going to SeaWorld, the city’s best-known attractions. No problem. Indeed, two weeks just scratches the surface of this weather-perfect, culturally-rich city nestled between rolling hills and seemingly endless pristine beaches.

Here are just some highlights of a recent two-week stay.

North Park

Forbes ranks North Park as one of America’s top hipster neighborhoods. The designation is based on criteria such as walkability, locally-owned coffee shops, bars and restaurants and, of course, the percentage of “artists” among the population.

A good time to visit is on a Thursday, when a farmers’ market sets up in a large parking lot from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. It’s mostly organic produce, but artisans also have tables and there’s exotic fast food. Among the diverse offerings: green-leaf smoothies, East African samosas and vegan, gluten-free tamales.

University Avenue is North Park’s lively spine and home to several vintage clothing shops, a thriving vinyl record store and Controversial, a 50-year-old bookstore with near daily psychic readings. The side streets house a range of artist storefronts and offbeat shops such as a photo studio that specializes in dog portraits and Vintage Religion with an eclectic collection of religious folk art from around the world.

Among the distinctive eating and drinking spots is Splash, a wine bar where customers can press a button to sample—for between $1 and $6—one-ounce “splashes” from more than 60 different wine bottles mounted on circular tables.

We had dinner nearby at The Linkery, one of the city’s best and a leader in its influential homegrown food movement. Linkery features a daily selection of about a half dozen sausages taken from its five-dozen repertoire, all made on site. For non-meat eaters, there are versions of San Diego’s ubiquitous fish taco, local cheeses and crispy french fries. To accompany your meal, try one of the dozens of local craft beers that has made the city a destination for “beerthusiasts.” (Indeed, there’s a city-wide annual beer week festival in September that draws ale and lager lovers from around the world.)

Whale Watching

You don’t have to sail far out of San Diego Bay to spot a whale or two, or more. In fact, the city skyline was in easy view when we came across a couple of bobbing 20-metre-long fin whales—the second largest behind the blue whale. Both the Birch Aquarium in nearby La Jolla and the city’s Natural History Museum sponsor large whale-watching boats with naturalists as spotters on the bridge, alerting the passengers below to every sighting. “No matter how many times you see whales, you never tire of it,” says Kim Mikulka, in her sixth season as a once-a-week Birch volunteer, one of three on our vessel.

The return to shore produces an added treat. Three cavorting dolphins keep pace with our rapidly moving ship, swimming just below and just in front of the bow for 10 minutes. “It’s called bow running,” says Mikulka. “If you go too slow, they’re not interested.”Balboa Park

This 1,200-acre park is home to the San Diego Zoo, one of the world’s first cageless zoos and one of the few with a giant panda as a permanent resident. The park is also home to an 18-hole golf course, vast formal and informal gardens, along with more than 100 kilometres of bicycle and hiking trails. But you can spend several days in this urban playground without doing any of that.

In the park’s centre are 15 major museums and assorted other related attractions. They range from the Air and Space Centre to the WorldBeat Cultural Center of African-American art. All are mid-sized or small, perfect for easy visits of an hour or two. Several are housed in the nearly century-old magnificent Spanish Baroque structures built for the 1915 international exposition that celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal.

Whatever your interests, there’s a museum for you. Model-train enthusiasts flock to the world’s largest model railway museum. The Timken Museum of Art, admission free, contains but five rooms, each dedicated to a particular period and containing masterworks from the likes of Rembrandt, Rubens and Fragonard.

If you like vintage cars, there’s an automotive museum. Science? There’s the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center with an Imax theatre. There’s a photography museum, the Natural History Museum and an anthropology museum with a controversial torture exhibit.

The park is also home to the Old Globe Theater, a year-round professional company whose productions often end up on Broadway. Another gem is a massive outdoor pipe organ with free concerts every Sunday at 2 p.m.

La Jolla

A suburb for the well-heeled, it is aptly named “jewel” in Spanish. Its beaches, one of which is also a seal and pelican sanctuary, are among the best in the state. High-end boutiques and art galleries line Prospect Street, but an affordable meal can be had overlooking the sea on the outdoor deck of George’s at the Cove, a double winner in San Diego Magazine’s 2012 list of best restaurants: it won top prizes for view and seafood.

On the bluffs above the commercial area, we stumble upon Torrey Pines Gliderport for paragliders and hang gliders. Brave first-timers flyers can, for $140, “rent” an instructor to hold on tight to for up to 30 minutes as you float over town and ocean.

Close by is the Birch Aquarium, part of the world-renowned local Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It is hard to imagine a more child-friendly place. Volunteers eagerly engage young — and older — visitors at every opportunity to talk about the fish in the tanks and handle the starfish and other creatures that live in the aquarium’s tide pools.

Birch houses one of the world’s largest arrays of sea horses, some 36 colourful species ranging in height from one to 30 centimetres. It is easy to imagine that former La Jolla resident and regular aquarium visitor Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, received inspiration from this collection.

USS Midway

Word of warning: you have to run to keep up with 86-year-old Joe Neves, one of the dozens of volunteers — all vets anxious to share a story — that pop up everywhere on this floating museum’s five decks. Neves enlisted in the navy’s air unit at 17 to fight in the Second World War. A year later, he saw his first action aboard an aircraft carrier considerably smaller than the 300-metre long Midway, the world’s largest when it entered the water just days after the war’s end. Now, Neves dashes around the flight deck, describing the terror of being under fire, directing visitors to where the crew slept and ate, and pointing to a blow-up on a wall of him in uniform as a teen. “We were very young,” he says. “We knew it was right to fight, but we didn’t know what we were getting into.”Coronado IslandMarilyn Monroe stayed here. So did presidents, other global leaders and the love-struck Prince of Wales who abdicated the British throne to marry divorcée Wallis Simpson. Turns out Simpson, then married to the San Diego naval base commander, the first of her three husbands, lived here during the prince’s visit. No one knows if they met at the time, but they all lodged at the Hotel del Coronado, the location for Monroe’s Some Like it Hot and the world’s largest resort hotel when it opened in 1888.

Now, as it celebrates its 125th anniversary, it remains a luxury hotel but with options for the less well-off. Lunch outdoors is casual and reasonably priced. Its spa offers 20 per cent off on Mondays, and its separate homemade ice cream storefront is alone worth a visit. And there’s the public beach out front, voted the best in the U.S., in at least one authoritative survey.

Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery

For the best view of the city skyline and the Pacific, visit this serene final resting place for more than 100,000 former military personnel and their families. High up on a promontory, the cemetery’s rows upon rows of white marble headstones are perfectly aligned horizontally, vertically and diagonally on slopes that lead toward the ocean on one side and San Diego Bay on the other.

Admirals rest next to privates. Generals are next to the wives of sergeants. True equality, at least in the afterlife.

The Beaches

San Diego is ultimately defined by its beaches. The city boasts more than 150 kilometres of white sand, from the gentle waves of La Jolla, ideal for beginning surfers, to the equally calm waters of Coronado Beach. In between, the sea is a magnet for surfers, parasailers and just ordinary swimmers.

The contiguous Mission and Pacific beaches, part of a vast city parkland, are popular with both city youth and outside visitors. The pier at Pacific Beach supports some two dozen cottages that comprise a unique hotel above the crashing waves. Guests mingle with locals who fish off the pier.

One can walk for hours on the boardwalk that separates the expansive beach and the hundreds of low-rise, townhouse and apartment rental units for short- and long-term visitors. The city’s extensive network of bicycle paths also hugs these shores.

We began every morning with a pre-breakfast one-hour bicycle ride and found new areas to explore every day (Rentals can be as low as $8 per day or $40 per week at Cruiser King, www.kruiserking.com). In the late afternoon, we strolled along the beach as the sun set. It was quite magical. Maybe on our next visit, we’ll have time to visit SeaWorld and the zoo.

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